The first month of 2024 has been very busy for the EARS Consortium: the very first review meeting took place on January, 25th 2024!
All EARS partners have gathered together to present the project’s state of play and the activities carried-out in the first year of the project to the Project Officer from the European Commission and the external expert serving as a Reviewer.
The meeting has been the occasion to present the EARS spacecraft preliminary architecture presented by the University of Padua and its concept of operations outlined by DEIMOS. All main sub-systems requirements and specifications were presented and discussed, from the green propulsion system under development at T4I labs to the innovative inflatable heat shield proposed by Von Karman Institute. A minisatellite platform – with flight heritage – manufactured by Kongsberg NanoAvionics will serve as the baseline for the EARS spacecraft study.
Discussion of the first-year activities and of the results achieved so far has provided useful inputs and hints for planning the next activities and improve the impact of the project with the proposal of new exciting initiatives by the Applied Physics Institute of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-IFAC) for more robust stakeholders’ engagement. The EARS Consortium is really looking forward to carrying on this exciting project!